Peter Güllenstern and Jürgen Stollhans’s new exhibition explores Cologne’s Mülheimer Hafen as a microcosm of urban transformation, using a combination of non-narrative fiction film and collage. In their work, the site is visited by the imaginary character Lucius Okeh, whose symbolic actions suggest that he might be the catalyst for new forms of urban colonization. The Mülheimer Hafen is a space already profoundly shaped by the coexistence of modernism and colonial representation: the famous Werkbund Exhibition held across the river in 1914 included a human zoo with a Congolese Village. Likewise, the Pressa exhibition of 1928 featured a “special colonial exhibit” alongside El Lissitsky’s Soviet pavilion—whose horizontal skyscraper concept was later appropriated in the neoliberal redevelopment of the neighboring harbor zone. It is this history of associations that Güllenstern and Stollhans explore in their DIY faux-documentary infographics.

Peter Güllenstern and Jürgen Stollhans are both Cologne-based artists. Güllenstern’s work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Simultanhalle in Cologne in 2009. Stollhans’s work was presented at the documenta 12 in 2007 and most recently in solo exhibitions at the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund and at the Kunsthalle Münster.